


i want to see your sadness, i want to share your sin

by jolie_unfiltrd



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sansa Stark is Queen in the North, Trash Fic, Unbeta'd, angsty targaryen longings, sansa and her choice of adoptive brothers is my OTP, semi-incest?, that should be the main tag for jonsa tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-01-18 09:39:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12385623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolie_unfiltrd/pseuds/jolie_unfiltrd
Summary: Theon rescues Yara. The Greyjoys go to Winterfell to declare for the Queen in the North whose name is Stark. Jon knows nothing, but he's figuring some things out. Dragons swoop overhead, the dead march on, and Sansa is faced with a choice.





	1. i want to see your sadness, i want to feel your sin

**Author's Note:**

> Does this sound familiar? Oh, it does? Interesting. Could be because I took what I posted a few days ago and rewrote large chunks of it and cut out weird parts that made NO SENSE in reflection, even if they were fun to write. *shrugs* ANYWAY HERE'S WONDERWALL 
> 
> title from heavy by birdtalker.

———

First, he came for Yara. 

Then, he came for her. 

———

Sansa stood in the courtyard, hands clasped in her skirts, trying not to berate herself for forgetting her gloves inside. She may be a wolf, but even wolves have their pack to keep them warm, and a heavy pelt for when they are apart. She did her best not to shiver as the host of men and women in front of her began to dismount from their horses. The kraken emblem was clear enough, and she had sent scouts ahead to ensure this was not Euron’s party, but she remained wary. Arya was fidgeting with the dagger at her waist, and Brienne’s hand never moved from the pommel of her sword. 

The woman who strode up to her reminded her of Brienne, actually, - all brawn and strength - but where Brienne was careful training and footwork practice, this one was swagger and a dagger in the back and a ship in the night. Oddly, Sansa trusted her immediately. 

“Yara Greyjoy,” she drawled, by way of introduction. She held out a leather-bound arm, and Sansa clasped it, elbow to elbow, smiling softly at her father’s youngest ward’s oldest sister. Only sister, if she remembered correctly. A powerful woman in her own right, she had heard much about this new queen of Pyke. 

“Sansa Stark.” 

Yara grinned widely. “Aye, I know who you are. My runt of a brother wouldn’t stop talking about you and your fiery hair and -“ She was cut off by a man elbowing her roughly in the side before coming face to face with Sansa. 

She barely recognized the man in front of her, standing tall and proud, a kraken on his chest and a small grin hanging off the corner of his mouth. He bowed low to her, saying “Lady Stark” with all the familiarity and warmth that he had used to call her by her given name when they were children. She is surprised by the way his voice sends her straight home, back into the days of old when things were good and sweet and simple. Apple orchards and honey and the crisp summer breeze drifting through the godswood. She is more surprised it didn’t take her back to their shared time together, before, but this was not Reek in front of her, stooped and afraid. This man towering over her, the lankiness of his youth replaced by thick, corded arms and a broader chest, missing a few fingers but with a face that she would have known blind - this was Theon Greyjoy. 

He glanced to the ground, then back up at her eyes, confident smile turning bashful under the weight of her gaze. 

“Theon,” she breathed, eyes wide with shock, “you’re alive -“ she reached out her hands as if to touch him, but restrained herself at the last moment, remembering how her skin itches at the slightest touch, burns at a nudge, and how she would crawl out of her skin rather than endure an unexpected embrace. 

“Hello Sansa,” he says quietly, a shy smile quirking up the edge of his mouth, before raising a trembling hand out to her in return. 

She couldn’t resist any longer, couldn’t clench her fists in the voluminous folds of her skirt a moment more. She took a step forward, then two more, almost running in her haste to throw her arms around him and tuck her chin into his chest. She was determined not to cry, but she had been determined not to touch him, and look how that had turned out. 

Arya and Brienne exchanged an incredulous glance behind her back. Arya had been given an embrace at their reunion, to be sure, but since then, she had been guarded, careful with her touches, even more carefully hiding the immediate recoil when anyone else would reach out to her. Brienne had noted it too, thinking guiltily that the scars of her body likely only told half the story. 

Theon only meant to gently wrap his arms around her, he truly did, but when Sansa threw herself into his arms, his body seemed to move of its own volition, wrapping one arm around her waist and the other around her head, stroking her hair and nuzzling into her like a damned Stark direwolf. He may be a kraken once more, but once he would have given anything to be one of them. 

She pulled back, looking up at him with tears glistening in her eyes. “I… I thought you were dead.” Her voice cracked and her bottom lip trembled and gods, to see this woman, made entirely of velvet shrouding steel, weep for him? It was more than he could handle. He disentangled himself, stepping away but maintaining a loose hold on her hands, before kneeling in front of her, eyes full of sorrow. 

“I should have come back for you, I should have fought for you at the battle for Winterfell,” he said fervently.

“We didn’t have the men, my lady, and we were halfway across the sea,” Yara cut in, rare regret coloring her features, sea salt hardened like crystals in the strands of her hair, a fresh scar cutting across her cheek. Had she known more about the suffering Sansa had had to endure, she might have tried harder, back then… “I’m sorry,” she offered, knowing it was woefully inadequate. 

Sansa squeezed Theon’s hands once more and drew him up, nodding decisively at the siblings in front of her. “There’s nothing to forgive.” Her tone was firm, and that was that. 

———

They stood together at the place they had jumped, once, in what seemed like another life.  
He spoke to her of ships and sails, waves crashing and bravery failing.  
She told him of icy woods, and the baying of hungry hounds. 

———

Jon rode in on horseback from White Harbor, preceding Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons by only a day or two, drawn in by both Bran’s urgent raven and a burning to desire to be at home, finally, within Winterfell’s walls. There had been so many times he had been sure he wouldn’t return. But, as the gates opened up to him and shouts resounded from all corners, he felt as if he had finally come home. 

He sighted a flash of familiar red hair, and dismounted his horse to greet her - but the second his feet touched the ground he saw who was standing on either side of her, or rather, that one was standing and the other perched in an unfamiliar chair. Bran, he recognized the boy in an instant, with a pang of guilt, as he looked so much like their uncle Benjen, but so somber, with eyes as cold as the Wall itself. And Arya, an strange Braavosi dagger on her hip, dressed in breeches, and standing to Sansa’s right elbow as if she were her solemn protector. It should have seemed strange, his baby sister dressed in such a way, with a fierceness in her eyes that belied the soft, slow curve of her smile, but nothing he had seen in his travels had looked so right, so fitting. He was suddenly glad he had decided to give her Needle, long ago. 

Tightly bound as a coil, dark circles under her eyes - and gods, she seemed too thin again - it was clear there was much he and Sansa needed to discuss. But she only said, arms folded in the furs at her waist, a smile on her lips that didn’t quite reach her eyes, “Welcome home, Jon.” 

Arya let out a whoop and stepped forward to launch herself into his arms, throwing her arms around his neck and letting him swing her around joyfully. She laughed like it was the first day of summer and he had just given her Needle. He held her close, before setting her down and raising a hand as if to ruffle her hair, before stopping short. He saw the long scar running down her neck into the top of her overcoat, felt the corded muscles of her arms, noted the way she seemed constantly on-guard, on the tip of her toes like a cat, ready to pounce. 

“What?”

“I feel as if I shouldn’t ruffle your hair now, you look as if you could slit my throat in my sleep.” Jon chuckled, but it faded as he noticed the look on the Stark siblings’ faces. Sansa, in particular, looked as if she had swallowed a whole lemon as she avoided his eyes. It was odd, now that he thought about it, that the lecherous Baelish wasn’t glued to her side as usual. He narrowed his eyes and thought to ask of it - but was interrupted by Bran’s serious directive. 

“Come, brother,” intoned Bran. “We have much to speak about.” The words sounded strange pouring off his lips, as if he were unused to speaking. 

———

He spoke of a sword and a tower and a woman dying.  
He was silent. He leaves. He punches the wall on his way out.  
He barely makes it to the godswood before he falls to his knees, and weeps.  
He has lost the only family he ever had. 

———

Theon wasn’t sure if he believed in the old gods, anymore. Or any gods at all. His house words echoed in his mind - what is dead may never day - and he considered them his only religion. So, it was odd that he would seek solace in the godswood of Winterfell. 

But it was late, the raucous sailors were drunk and disorderly and looking for chaos. They had started to make their way to winter town to persuade some whores to forget their fees, and tried to drag Theon along. He slipped away in the darkness - he was good at that, even now - not wanting to look into the eyes of more people that hated him for what he had done just a few years before. He hated himself for what he had done, and spent every moment trying to atone for his sins against the only family he had known. It’s true, he had Yara now. He had fought and died for her and rose again - but she hadn’t played with him in the hot springs, hadn’t practiced sword play in the courtyard, hadn’t dined with him and flicked kidney pie off her spoon at him. He may have been an unwanted ward, but the Starks had made him feel like family. He intended to go sit in the godswood and mourn the life he could have had, had he chose differently, had he been a better man. 

Instead, he stumbled across Jon - quite literally. His dark hair was the only thing that stood out, the snow having long since coated his heavy furs. Theon apologized immediately, backing up before recognizing the cut of his jaw, that stubborn set of the shoulders. 

“Jon?” he asked, unbelieving and with a lurch in his gut. The last time he saw this man, he had told him he could be both a Stark and Greyjoy. The time before that, he had threatened to kill him. It was an understatement to say he had mixed feelings about the man. 

Jon slowly turned his head up towards Theon, sighing heavily before standing up. The time for self-pity was done; he may not be Ned Stark’s son, but the same wolfsblood still runs through his veins. The same honor. And at the end of the day, his mantra remained the same: winter is coming, and death follows. He desperately wanted his family to live, no matter that they were cousins now, not siblings. 

He locked eyes with Theon. “I didn’t know you were here.” 

Theon raised one eyebrow, challenging and confident in a way he had not been before Yara’s rescue. _What is dead may never die._ “I could say the same to you, Jon. Where is the rest of your party?” 

Maybe it was the flickering light from the nearby campfires mixed with the stars coming out above, but he could have sworn Jon looked positively green. “Daenerys and Tyrion wanted to wait for the Dothraki riders to catch up before they approached Winterfell.” 

Theon nodded. Time was limited, then. A few days, at the most. He’d have to tell Yara. 

———

The dragon queen approached slowly, riding at the head of her horde with a heavy cloak thrown over her shivering shoulders, unused to the cold.  
Two dragons swooped overhead, calling mournfully for their lost brother.  
_Cousins,_ Jon repeated to himself, again and again. _Cousins._  
A half-hopeful smile formed on his lips. 

———

Watching them talk together at the head table, Jon was almost surprised at the jealousy gnawing in the pit of his stomach, a more demanding mistress than hunger by far. Her hand rested easy on Theon’s arm, and her affectionate smile was near blinding. He had known she held some fondness for the man, but had been almost certain the sight of him would remind her too much of her time in Winterfell as Lady Bolton. He had thought to keep them separated from the beginning, that she wouldn’t have to look upon his face, and he wouldn’t have to see the pain etched across hers in the rare moments her mask would slip. He had been wrong, apparently. 

He had also been wrong that Sansa would share the news of Daenerys Targaryen - _aunt,_ he reminded himself - with the Northern lords, about the deal he had made, that he had given the North away. He had begun to wonder if the raven had never reached its destination. The serving girls still called him “Your Grace” and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. 

So intent was Jon on his brooding, he hardly noticed when Yara nudged him, idly tossing a dagger from hand to hand as she perched on the bench next to him, pushing a tankard full of ale towards him. It was terrible stuff, but it was ale. It would do. 

“Have they always been like this?” she asked, curiously. Her brother had been so distant from her as a child - and honestly, she had hardly wanted reminders that he existed, the scrawny, pathetic, whiny Stark hostage that could usurp her birthright with just a few words in a kingsmoot - and she hadn’t asked about his time with the Starks since their reunion. Other things had been on their minds. A war, another war, a murderous uncle… the list seemed to grow daily. 

Jon’s eyes flashed to hers, bemused and quizzical, remembering the days of innocence long gone by. “No, I don’t believe so.” He could hardly remember the two of them having a proper conversation, let alone anything that would lead to a camaraderie such as the one they shared. Granted, he spent much of his time brooding about being an unwanted and unloved bastard, and much less of his time caring about the antics of his most annoying half-sibling and the other unwanted youth of Winterfell.

“I thought she hated him,” Jon admitted, before allowing a small, rueful smile to cross his face. “I thought she hated me, too.” And indeed, had anyone heard their daily arguing, they might have insisted it was still the case. But the quiet nights in her solar, the steadiness of her presence - they had settled into an easy rhythm at Winterfell. Although, that had been before he went to Dragonstone, before he had given up her birthright, and before everything had changed. _Cousins._

Yara laughed, a short barking laugh, before sheathing her dagger in the scabbard at her hip. “Looks like things can change, Lord Snow. After all, the dead can rise, dragons dance in the sky, queens be born from fire and salt and ice.” 

There was a moment of silence. 

“Ice?” he turned to look at her, brows furrowed in consternation. The whole of Westeros by now knew of Daenerys rising from the flames not once, but twice. And Yara’s shipmates had told a boisterous tale of her own queensmoot, how she had risen from the Drowned God’s clutches and clutched that crudely wrought crown to her chest even as the sea water forced its way from her lungs. 

Yara only looked at him, incredulous. “Gods be good, you don’t see it, do you?” She rolled her eyes. “Must you Northerners always be so dense?” Or is it just men, she wondered to herself, thanking the gods she wanted nothing to do with them and preferred soft skin and pursed lips and delicate hands and nuance and skill. She gestured to the Northern Lords draped against every bench in the hall, the Lords of the Vale, the soldiers from Riverrun, and now, the Ironborn, come to make mischief and drink ale and seduce the serving girls, not necessarily in that order. 

“Don’t you know a queensmoot when you see one?”


	2. we're all lonely together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A queensmoot, an offering, and a discussion. The Mother of Dragons approaches.

They crowned her Queen.  
They laid a bronze-wrought circlet on her head, cheering and laughing and stomping their feet.  
She smiled prettily, danced all night, and went back to her chambers and wept.  
(Crowns did not lay easy on Stark brows). 

—

It had all happened rather quickly, Jon thought as he strode back to his room. Yara had knocked some sense into his head, gesturing to the Lady Stark at the head table while he sulked in the back of the room, apt to drown in his ale if she didn’t stop him - though only the gods would know why. His eyes had widened at her words, and he had stood up abruptly, drawing the eye of most in the room, curious as to why their King was in the back of the hall, at a table of Ironborn, rather than up with their lady. 

Truly, he hadn’t felt he belonged there. Not now, not anymore, no matter how many times her words echoed in his head. _You’re a Stark, you are, you are to me_. He tried not to wonder if she would still think so once he told her the truth, once he was courageous enough to tell her the truth. 

Other truths were more important, more pertinent as Daenerys rode towards them, dragons swooping overhead. He told them the Dragon Queen wanted the North in exchange for her help - to the chorus of jeering and insults - and that he had bent the knee, but if he was no longer King, his words meant nothing, his promises could be revoked. 

(The honorable son of Ned Stark may not have done such a thing, but he knew what he was now, knew who he was. 

Suddenly the way that he burned feverish and hot and desperate each time he looked at his half-sister made _sense_. 

Former half-sister, he reminded himself as he allowed the fever to blossom further, just because he could. Just because, now, he can. 

What does it make him if he loved her before he knew? A Targaryen? He’d been called worse). 

In the silence that followed, he strode up to the head table, circlet in hand, and knelt on the cold stone floor in deference to the woman in front of him, pledging his fealty as fervently as he could. “I know no Queen, but the Queen in the North whose name is Stark.” _I love no Queen but the Queen in the North whose name is Stark._ He had given her the North once before, tasking her with its care until he returned, but he saw now that it had been hers all along, that she was the one who deserved the crown. 

Lady Lyanna Mormont was the first to take up the cheer, to no one’s particular surprise, but the lords of the Vale, the Ironborn, the Northern Lords - all had quickly followed suit. Sansa had stood - he wondered if he was the only one who could see, from his position on his knees in front of her, how her hands shook - and she lifted the circlet to her head, beaming widely at the lords around them, looking around the room at each of the groups in turn, listening to their raucous cheers. 

She fixed her sapphire eyes on him, and it felt as if the cheers faded into static. There was affection there, betrayal too. _Why have you done this to me?_

A Northern Lord asked her to dance and whisked her away, loud music emanating through the room as calls for more ale sounded out and the musicians struck up a lively tune. She did not look back at him. 

—

Twin dragons landed heavily on the ground, a few miles from Winterfell.  
Daenerys wrapped her cloak tightly around her, wishing for the warmth of Jon’s embrace.  
His skin seemed to be always burning, though a flush never appeared on his cheeks.  
It will be so sweet, she thinks, to see him again. 

— 

Arya watched Jon carefully as Sansa was crowned. There was only a quiet pride in his eyes, though she supposed to anyone else, he would seem serious and brooding. But Arya knew him, had always known him best, and saw through the rough demeanor to his warm heart. And his heart held fondness for her sister, and something else, something sad and hopeful that disappeared each time she tried to examine it further. 

Sansa, though… well, she had never truly understood her sister, her mirror and her opposite both. But she had thought, she had expected, really, that there would be a warmth in Sansa’s eyes when she looked at Jon, that she would embrace him and touch his arm the way she did Theon’s, that she would dance in his arms after they crowned her. But though Sansa gave easy smiles to Theon, and ran her hand through Bran’s hair, and danced with whatever Lord asked her, she did not touch Jon. Did not come close to him. 

And it was odd, somehow. 

Sansa had told her of the surprising warmth of their reunion at Castle Black as they sat at the hearth and unpacked their stories for the other - describing violence and horror and the small moments of happiness that threaded it together. That Jon was a moment of happiness for Sansa, that they had worked as a team to take back their home - it had surprised her, and surprised her more now that she saw them together again. But the strange mixture of pain and hope in Jon’s eyes and the careful frigidity of Sansa’s smiles told her it had not always been cold distance between them. She wasn’t sure she had heard Sansa say a word to him that wasn’t socially required. So she asked the only person she knew that would tell her the truth. 

“Have they always been like this?” she asked as they sat in the godswood early the next morning, sharpening blades against whetstones in a way that reminded her of her father. Of their father. 

Brienne merely angled a puzzled glance her way. 

“Sansa and Jon, I mean,” she insisted. “She doesn’t go near him and treats him like -“ _like she used to, when we were young and stupid and thought the worst thing was being sent to bed without supper. There are far worse things, it turns out, as they had both learned to their sorrow._

The lady knight sighed, and shook her head. 

“No, they weren’t like this before. They could barely keep their hands off each other, mil- Arya,” Brienne winced at the lack of title, but plowed ahead at her startled look. “Not like _that_ ,” she rolled her eyes impatiently as the rhythm of the whetstone against the blade transported her back to icy woods and fear and the joy she had seen on the Lady Sansa’s face. 

Privately, she had thought that if it _was_ like that, would it have really been so bad? 

Still, she considered her next words carefully. She did not judge other people for who they loved, but others might. 

“It was… as though they were trying to reassure themselves that the other one was there, alive, solid.” Ankles crossed under the table, a careful press of their shoulders together, the quick linkage of their fingertips. It had been so subtle, it had taken weeks for her to notice - but after each touch, Lady Sansa’s shoulders would lower and she would breathe easier and whatever torments plagued her in the night had begun, slowly, to fade. 

The nightmares returned when Jon left, and hadn’t stopped since his return. Arya had seen the way that Sansa’s gaze seemed to cut into him, to look through him like a thin sheet of ice, how she pretended like she wasn’t really seeing him, not really. Jon’s dark orbs would shutter and his shoulders would tense and his fingers would twitch at his sides - but he was polite with her. She was polite to him, but with a frosty exterior. Brienne wouldn’t know, hadn’t seen how Lady Catelyn had treated her bastard half-son, but Arya knew it was an unpleasant memory made flesh that Jon saw each time he looked at her. That revulsion, that disgust, the thinly veiled dislike. 

“What changed?” Arya asked, wondering if the knight knew more than she was letting on. 

Brienne’s gaze cut to her, sharply, and Arya cut off her denial of knowing anything, because it was clear that she knew something and was surprised Sansa hadn’t told her. “No, tell me. I need to know.” 

Brienne was silent for a moment. “Jon bent the knee to the Dragon Queen in exchange for her help defeating the Night King.” 

“I knew that,” she rolled her eyes, “he said as much last night before he crowned her.” 

Brienne set aside her whetstone and looked at Arya seriously. “It’s more than that, though I believe that was the tipping point. He left her the North, rode South against her advice, and never once wrote her. They had depended on each other for months, ever since we met him at Castle Black, and they had finally been communicating.” 

“There had been trust between them, and friendship. The first words he wrote to her, after nearly dying north of the Wall-“ 

“Jon was north of the Wall? What? When?” 

She merely shook her head and continued. “The first words were to abdicate his throne in favor of Daenerys Targaryen. Lord Baelish had spent weeks whispering vile things in her ears about the two of them, about their similarities and whispers of her beauty and how they could marry-“ 

“But if they married…” Arya paused, mind whirling rapidly to try to understand a Jon that didn’t act like the boy she remembered, the man she had thought he’d become. “What would become of Sansa?” 

The grim set in Brienne’s jaw told her that was the true tipping point. Sansa had been forced into marriages, alliances, false friendships ever since they left for King’s Landing - it made sense that she wouldn’t want to leave her home, not again, or be married to a man she didn’t know just to keep it. 

“But she’s Queen now, she can do whatever she likes.” 

“Queens still need heirs, Arya.” A familiar voice from behind them echoed in the clearing, causing them to whip around guiltily. “But it won’t matter if we’re dead.” 

Sansa stood alone, hands clasped in front of her and circlet gleaming in the morning light. “Daenerys Targaryen will be here this afternoon to treat with us, and sup with us.” She narrowed her eyes at Arya. “Please, behave yourself. I don’t want to have to explain to Jon why his lov-“ she cut herself off, obviously furious with herself for the words that had almost, nearly, barely come forth. “I don’t want to lose a potential ally because you had an urge to make pie, all of a sudden.” 

Arya’s grin turned predatory, sharp teeth and gleaming eyes. “I’ll behave if she does,” she promised. Sansa’s lips pursed, but she knew that was as good a promise as she was going to get. It would have to do. 

—

They stood in the courtyard, a force to be reckoned with.  
Sansa refused to wince at the calls of dragons overhead.  
Jon stood at her shoulder, carefully reaching to brush his finger against her palm, as he had done before.  
It had never lit a fire in his veins, before, not one that he could acknowledge. // This should have been sweet, but the taste of his touch was bitter in her mouth.  
She pulled away and clasped her hands in front of her, looking like a queen of winter, a queen of the songs.  
Bran’s eyes flashed white.  
“They are here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Jon and Sansa confront each other, (FINALLY) and Theon comforts Sansa in the godswood. I'm not going to lie to you, this fic has taken on a mind of its own and I cannot promise you endgame one way or the other but please know my main ship is Sansa X happiness so though there's angst it won't be ALL angst. I think. It's half-written, so it should be up shortly! 
> 
> As always, constructive feedback is very welcome, and you can follow me on tumblr: jolieunfiltrd. 
> 
> chapter/work titles from **heavy** by birdtalker (which if you need a song to feel both happy and sad about, I HIGHLY recommend it!) 
> 
> k thanks baiiiiiiiii


	3. i want to be your blood, i want to be let in

The salt queen watched her brother’s eyes track the graceful movements of the queen of winter.  
She wanted to warn him to watch his heart, lest he lose it forever.  
She had a feeling it was too late. 

—

Daenerys Targaryen strode in the gates of Winterfell with Tyrion on her left, Missandei on her right, a suspicious Greyworm behind her, and Jorah Mormont, as always, close behind. She started to smile, lovely and sharp, at the gathering before her, but it faded once she saw the circlet around Sansa’s head. 

Her eyes narrowed further at the way Jon stood at Sansa’s shoulder, and did not greet her, aside from a brief incline of his head, and a strange look that passed over his face - longing and sadness and fear, intermingled into one. He looked like he had lost something he had never had and gained something he never wanted. He looked like he was no longer King in the North. More importantly, he looked like he had betrayed her.

She was used to being wanted, worshipped, adored. Years of being treated like a broodmare, a thing to be sold and bartered and bought and violated had taught her to accept nothing less. She deserved to be treated like a queen - but it seems this man, this mortal man who was worth nothing to her, now, had found another to treat as a queen. 

A secret, quiet hurt festered in the dark corners of her heart.

Still, she did her best to tamp down her fury. She wanted all of the seven kingdoms in her palm at the end of this terrible conflict, she wanted the North’s support against Cersei, and she reminded herself, sharply, that burning Winterfell to the ground would almost positively ruin all of her prospects in Westeros in one fell swoop. 

It didn’t stop the dragons from roaring in the distance, it didn’t stop the hurt transforming into a burning desire for vengeance, for fire and blood and _for the love of all that is holy, one day, one day, she would destroy this family and they would love her for it._

The smile that cut across her face was made entirely of dragonglass, sharp and sweet and destructive, violet eyes dangerous and calculating. 

She said nothing, holding up a hand when Missandei began reading her litany of titles. These people knew who she was, just as she knows them, their faces, their weaknesses. 

This red-haired chit at the front with an ugly bronze circlet woven into her braids, eyes bright as the Night King’s and a mouth like a blade, impassive and porcelain and unemotional - this could only be the ice queen, the queen of winter. Sansa _fucking_ Stark. Oh, she knew this woman, at least, she knew _of_ this woman. She had heard Tyrion extol her praises, her kindness, her shrewd, quiet ways that made him think she’d outlast them all. She had heard Jon sigh her name once in the darkness, after he had fallen asleep in her embrace, her fingers stilling in his hair at the wistful sound. 

(She had said Khal Drogo’s name like that, once). 

Daenerys didn’t want to admit it but the light in her eyes, the set of her shoulders - Tyrion may have been right, this was not a woman to be moved. Sansa Stark is a mountain and a wall and will crumble at no one’s feet, not anymore. The dragon queen couldn’t help it, her pale shoulders shivered under her extravagant cloak. 

Another woman approached from the left of the yard, boots crunching the snow in the silence that had followed her arrival, and despite herself, a warm smile spread over Daenerys’s face. She remembered this woman, brash and loud and smart as a whip. She remembered being curious about the way it would feel to lay with her, feeling a heat course through her as they had linked arms - she tilted her chin higher. There was no room for weakness here in this courtyard of queens. 

“Yara,” she nodded affectionately at the Queen of Pyke, before turning to Sansa and exhaling slowly before saying, simply and sweetly, “Sansa.” 

The red-headed woman inclined her head just so, the picture of courtly poise, the exact level of deference from one queen to another, though her eyes betrayed no warmth and she bared her teeth in a lupine smile. 

“Welcome to Winterfell,” she spoke clearly to her gathered party, before more quietly to the two queens in front of her. “Shall we begin?” 

She waited only for the briefest of nods from them both, before gesturing for them to follow as she whirled around and made her way towards the council room. Yara fell in behind her, trailed by Theon. 

Daenerys waited until Jon Snow turned to follow his queen, and pressed her shoulder into his, lightly. He looked at her in surprise, first, before his face shuttered and he was impassive as the weirwoods she had observed on the way in. She had tried to pray to the old gods, but they had not answered her. 

“What is the meaning of this?” she hissed into his ear as she tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, following the queen in the north like good little field mice. Had she not known what was coming for them… 

He looked chagrined and scolded but nowhere near properly repentant. “We should talk.” 

“I’d say so!” 

“Not… not here. Later.” His dark eyes shifted to the side, before flickering up to the procession in front of them, lighting on a flash of red before darting back down to the ground. She felt his arm tense underneath her touch as his fingers curled into a fist. 

“Tonight, then,” she promised, despite every fiber of her being wanting to rage and rail against him for his betrayal. She wasn’t sure, yet, why he had deserted her side, or if he had deserted her at all. Standing by his family had hurt her, yes, but then again, she had noticed who wore the crown. 

Maybe the woman kissed by fire had forbidden it. She glanced sidelong at the man beside him. 

No matter. She would have him at her side again, she was sure of it. 

—

The trio of queens at Winterfell hosted their first war council.  
It went… poorly.  
The queen in the south bided her time, drumming her fingers incessantly on the throne.  
A man with hair as gold as his hand looked back, only once, then rode on.  
He rode North. 

—

Jon didn’t mean to stumble upon this - this scene - in the godswood, but he hadn’t known they were there. Hadn’t even imagined that the flash of red hair would be Sansa, settled on the snow in front of Theon, leaning her head back as his hands wove absentminded patterns through her long, silken locks with his bare hands, even in the cold. 

She seemed to be at peace, and he did not make a sound, merely observing them for as long as he dared. Her eyes closed, a contented sigh escaped her lips, and it pierced him like a dagger. 

He turned - a coward and a fool besides - and fled. 

———

Theon didn’t mean to stumble upon them like this, he hadn’t meant to stumble upon them at all. He had meant to be fast asleep in his chambers. But even in chambers that had been renovated after the Bolton’s brief sojourn - candles and tapestries and richly woven rugs making the space feel new, or, if not new, at least different, sleep evaded him. The nightmares had mostly faded, after he had rescued Yara, after he had been born again, but they hadn’t disappeared entirely. He felt it likely that they never would. 

He wandered the castle in the darkest hour of the night. The candles flickered lowly on the walls if they hadn’t already burnt out, and he lurked in shadows. He wasn’t afraid of the dark, not like he had been as a boy, a new ward inside Winterfell’s forbidding walls. The night may be dark and full of terrors, but the terror who had tormented him was dead, and the woman he had neglected to save, despite the guilt that threatened to shred his heart, even now, had taken vengeance for both of them. 

She had told him that afternoon in the godswood, about his death. She had come upon him contemplating the days ahead, and slumped into the ground in front of his feet, removing the rough bronze circlet from her braids and settling it in her lap, turning it from side to side. He knew what she was thinking, knew that every time she saw it, she remembered the last King in the North. The Young Wolf. Her brother, his friend. It was the same thoughts that ran his mind in circles. Guilt and desolation tore at his heart, but a gentle hand on his knee tore him from his reveries. 

“You’re not that man anymore, Theon.” Though a soft smile lifted the edges of her lips, her eyes were serious and intent, that Tully blue blazing a hole through him until he could barely breathe. He could only nod, unable to look away from her and her faith in him. 

“You’re not who you used to be, either.” Her lips pursed and her eyes welled with sudden tears, and he rushed to say what he meant, what he’d thought she’d known already. “You’re stronger, stronger than any of us, and you’ve taken back Winterfell when all others thought it lost forever. You’ve endured terrible things, things the rest of us can only imagine.” 

“Not you,” she said lowly, looking down at his gloved hand covering her own. She felt the pressure of his hand, of the ghostly echoes of his missing fingers. “You can imagine.” 

“Aye, I can imagine some of it, but not all, I reckon.” _That’s how I know it’s true, how I know I’m right. You’re better than all of us, more deserving of that crown than any Stark in history._ An odd pride filled his chest, flooded his bones with warmth. He wanted to draw her into his chest, to sink down to his knees next to her and wrap his arms around her and let her be weak, let her cry, let her be anything but the strong, hardened girl she had had to be, these last years. For really, they were all children, still, fighting battles and wars like they were long grown. 

Her eyes flickered towards him, a terrible gleam in her eyes that promised both heartbreak and vengeance. He could drown in her, could happily dive into her depths and never resurface. 

“He wept when he died, did I tell you that? He screamed as his hounds tore him apart.” Her hands balled into fists in her lap. “And all I could think was how much I loved the sound of it, how happy I was that he was gone, that I had been the one to do it.” Her voice quieted into a shameful whisper. “How lucky I was to get to watch his destruction.” 

She paused before looking up at him, her voice fierce in the quiet of the godswood, the plaintive echoes of childhood dreams interwoven in her words. “I don’t want to be a queen like Cersei, like Daenerys. I want them to love me.” 

“I haven’t met Cersei, but I know of her, and I fought with Yara for Daenerys,” he said, cautiously raising a hand to stroke her hair and feeling a thrum of warmth in his veins as she settled into him, turning her back trustingly and raising her chin, allowing full access to her ruby locks. “We could have gone back to her, but I convinced Yara not to go back, to turn towards you instead.” She stiffened in surprise, but said nothing as he continued. 

“I remembered the devotion of the people of the North towards you, towards your family. I remember your little kindnesses, the ways you had tried to help others. Coming here only proved that I was right. You prepared your people for the winter to come, building up food storage and bolstering the troops and sewing clothes for the people without enough to keep them warm in the wee hours of the morning.” He couldn’t help the proud smile that found its way across his face, confident and brash and reminiscent of days in the apple orchards that seemed like a lifetime ago, teaching Sansa and Arya archery out of the watchful eagle eyes of their mother. 

“They love you, you know. You can see it in the way they look at you, the way they fought for you, the way they still fight for you.” 

“They fight for their home,” she insisted weakly as his hands begin to form braids in her long hair. 

“They fight for you, because you fight for them,” he countered. “And so, they love you.” 

Sansa turned to look up at him, eyes wide and piercing and it was clear that she had never thought about it like that before. Never realized the level of adoration her people held for her. She noted the fondness in Theon’s eyes and reached a hand towards his gloves, gently removing them and decidedly not flinching at the sight of his scarred hands. She simply squeezed them tightly, looking up at him with a grateful smile across her lips, before turning back around. 

“I didn’t say you could stop,” her haughty voice floated up to his ears and he couldn’t help but laugh. It was like they were children again. True, they were children still, but they had seen things and experienced things no child ever should. 

“Yes, milady,” he grinned, and resumed playing with her hair, content to give her whatever modicum of peace he could. 

Now, in the dark shadows of the night, it was clear that Sansa was no longer at peace, no longer quietly content to sit in the snow of the godswood and know that her people loved her. Now, Sansa was furious, cheeks flushed with color as she stood opposite Jon in the antechamber of her bedroom, heavy robe wrapped around her shoulders but falling loose at the waist as she paced. She was lit by the dying hearth and looked impossibly lovely. 

Theon watched as Jon’s eyes traced her every move, her every exasperated sigh, and clutched his hands into fists at his sides, the very image of a man standing on a cliff he couldn’t help but tumble over.

Theon hadn’t meant to stumble across them, and though the door was open, it was clear that this was a conversation between the two siblings that he should not be privy to. There was a strange heaviness that hung in the air, a magnetism that he didn’t understand. Then, he looked at Jon’s face more closely, the raw and aching want laid bare, and was taken aback. _He wanted her._

She had been open with Theon, it’s true, had leaned into his touch, laughed on his arm - but she hadn’t let him in like this, hadn’t dragged him from his bed to yell at him, hadn’t looked at him with a passion in her eyes that he’d thought might have been lost to her forever. 

Who was he to judge where she found it? He slowly turned and walked back into the depths of the castle, leaving the two of them alone in front of the hearth, lit by its dying embers, swallowing the taste of his own heartbreak. 

—

The dragon queen wrapped her cloak tighter around her shoulders as she looked at the stars.  
_Family,_ she thought, bitter tears flowing down her cheeks.  
The only family she had left breathed fire and rage and blood and vengeance and -  
_how can she kill him, now? How can she not?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next: the jon/sansa confrontation. (i'm _sorry_ , I know I said it would be last chapter but things got shifted and here we are!) 
> 
> as always, constructive feedback is so very welcome, and you can follow me on tumblr: jolieunfiltrd.
> 
> chapter/work titles from **heavy** by birdtalker 
> 
> p.s. happy holidayzzzz y'all!


	4. don't we all just want to be together

The queen of golden hair searched for her love, and found him gone.  
She searched for her children, and found them gone, too.  
Ghosts, and traitors - they had left her alone. 

She did not weep.  
Did not open her legs, not this time.  
She had other weapons at her disposal, now. 

—

“Sansa, please, I have to talk to you-“ 

She whirled around, skirts fanning out around her ankles as she faced him, cerulean eyes ablaze with an anger that she’d been restraining for weeks, months, ever since that blasted letter had fallen into her lap. 

“I don’t have to do anything except try to clean up the mess you made -“ 

“If you’ll just let me explain-“ Jon gestured arms out to his sides, tunic askew and only halfway tucked into his breeches. It looked as though Sansa had yanked him from his bedchambers simply to yell at him. It wasn’t entirely untrue - he had stayed up with Tyrion, drinking late into the night and she had been unable to sleep. Tossing and turning, imagining Daenerys’ cool hair splayed against Jon’s dark curls, imagining him kissing her skin. It didn’t bother her, it _didn’t,_ but she had been unable to sleep, all the same, and when she heard his footsteps down the hall, she had finally felt like talking to him. Scolding him, really. 

“Explain what exactly,” she spat out. “Explain how you gave up your crown for the warmth of a woman’s cunt, how you negotiated as a hostage and gave away the North’s independence, how you jeopardized everything we fought for-“ her voice broke as tears pooled in her eyes, and she collapsed into a chair, letting her head fall into her hands.

“You didn’t even write,” she whispered, betrayal in every word, refusing to look at him, afraid he’d see the pain in her eyes. “Then you come home and crown me _queen_?” 

Jon stepped towards her slowly from his place in front of the hearth, in front of his chair- the one that had always been his, since they day she took these chambers. At this angle, he could see the graceful curve of her neck, the exhaustion lining her face, the way her shift was a little too loose on her thin shoulders, and waited until she glanced up at him, out of the corner of her eyes. He smiled softly, wry and self-deprecating and _Jon_ to the last, she thought. “Aye, but it was never my crown.”

Her head snapped up, eyes fierce, ready to argue with him, for him, for who he had so desperately wanted to be - but he held his hand up, fixing his eyes on her own when he said, lowly, “And you have always been my queen.” 

Her eyes widened, mouth forming a moue of surprise, only the flush on her cheeks indicating that she felt he had given her his last secret, his should-have-kept-to-his-grave secret. His gaze lingered on the curve of her lips with some devastating force and he wanted nothing more to kiss her and - 

“And now,” she said softly, interrupting his thoughts, “your cousin, too.” 

Jon couldn’t help laughing - he wasn’t surprised that she already knew. He was sure that nothing went on in this castle that she wasn’t aware of. But he had thought, had been sure that she would look at him like just another problem, another Targaryen with fire and blood and a dangerous simmering passion in their veins that he knew all too well, another throne to fight for, another cyvasse piece in this terrible game where you die at the end anyway so what’s the _fucking_ point -

But she surprised him, as she was wont to do, standing and walking towards him, placing a hand on his shoulder. Her jaw set determinedly, a stance he recognized as stubborn and wolf-born and too smart for anyone else’s good, and she shrugged, a decidedly casual gesture. 

“You’re still a Stark to me,” she said ever-so-gently, even as her eyes spoke volumes. Fury and rage and despair and mourning for the years of happiness lost to him, the lies of the only man he had ever called father, the distance of the bond between them, always so carefully spaced apart. And behind all that, perhaps, if he wasn’t imagining it, the unveiling of a dark longing, suppressed for months behind a veil of sibling courtesy and affection but composed of something else entirely.

(Ah, but I’m not a Stark, not entirely, he thought, as he flashed her a grateful smile. 

And nor was he a bastard. 

And so that left only one type of blood thrumming through his veins on which to place the blame for the lust he had carried with him for months, the ache to touch, to taste, to suck, to sink into - 

Fire and blood and taking what’s _ours_. 

He felt he could live up to those words, if only she- ) 

Her eyes flicked down to his lips. 

In the quiet, heavy moments that hung between them, there was only the crackle of the fire, and their breathing and the racing of his heart. Her braid had fallen loose against her shoulder, her gown had fallen open at the waist, and in the firelight, she gleamed.

—

Neither remembered they had left the door open.  
Neither remembered a sister with feet like a cat,  
a face of a stranger,  
a fondness for shadows and secrets.  
The distance between them had no room for secrets,  
and she had no interest in watching,  
so she slipped away, back to the forge.  
She quietly closed the door behind her. 

—

Emboldened, Jon reached a finger to touch the bones of her wrist, tracing up the pale flesh and hearing her breath hitch as he sighed her name. “Sansa.” He captured her wrist loosely, bringing it up to his face, giving her plenty of time to shove him away, waiting for the slight nod that she bestowed before pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses to the soft skin there, the pulsing beat of her blood, tearing through her veins. 

The touch of his lips sent tremors up her spine, across her arms, down her belly, a strange sort of heat pooling between her legs, where they touched. She was suddenly aware of how close he was, of how her robe had fallen off of one shoulder, leaving her in only her delicate shift, of how his eyes lingered in the hollows of her collarbone, the shadows of her neck, dragging up the side of her face, the curve of her lips, to meet her eyes and oh it felt like she was burning. 

This was wrong, she knew, but it felt like they had been building towards this since the day she threw herself into his arms at Castle Black, since the day they had taken back their home together, since the day she had asked where he would go next, and he replied simply: _where will we go._

This was wrong, she was sure of it, sure he had warmed the dragon queen’s bed while he was in the South, sure he had betrayed her for the silver-haired woman with the gleaming eyes, but she couldn’t bring herself to care when his hands were clutching hers like a lifeline, when his lips were tracing a path up her wrist. 

(It wasn’t wrong anymore, not now that she knew. 

But she’d stopped lying to herself, long ago. 

And she had ached for his kisses since they were young, her not-quite brother with his dark curls and grey eyes. 

It had only gotten worse, once she saw him again, once he fought for her, killed for her. 

There was something primal in her that loved him covered in blood. 

_Pack_ , she thought - but more fondly, deeper, darker, a scent-memory from days gone past: _mate_. 

_Mine_.) 

She had only the strength to ask, in a low querulous voice that betrayed her spiked jealousy towards the petite, beautiful woman with dragons and adoring men who had been able to fight her way out with flames and blood while she had had to rely on the word of traitorous men, of schemers, of those who would inevitably betray her. “What about-“ 

“I was playing the game,” he shrugged casually, though she could see what it had cost him, could see the shadows under his eyes and the tightness - still, even now - in his jaw. A darkness had begun to bloom in his eyes, and though she had expected fear, or even nervousness, there was only safety, belonging, a sureness. “I don’t want to play it, not anymore.” 

_I’ll be a Targaryen, even now, even in the North, if it means I can have you. If it meant you were mine for the taking, that you always have been. The flip of the coin… I don’t care where it lands, as long as you catch it in your palm._

“Jon,” she started - and he knew she was about to commend him but speak of the complications, of the problems that they had to face anew if he was no longer entwined with the silver-haired woman across the keep. He brought his hands up to the back of her neck, cradling her fire-warmed face, leaning his forehead against hers. 

“You told me I couldn’t protect you, but _gods_ , I had to try.” He pressed his lips against her brow, feeling a desperation take hold in his veins. “I’m _home_ , now, Sansa, I came home for you -“ 

She lifted her chin and pressed her lips boldly to his. 

Since the day of his resurrection, there had been a coldness in his veins, a feeling that chunks of ice existed where there used to be bones, a sensation of frost etching the hollows of his heart. In the heat of Dragonstone, at the dragon pits in King’s Landing, on the boat to White Harbor, he had felt the chill. His heaviest cloak had not been able to combat the shiver down his spine, the stiffness of his fingertips. 

But here, in the icy North, with Sansa Stark’s lips pressed against his own, he melted. 

His heart began to pound anew, vindication scorching its way through his bloodstream, belonging and wanting and desperate, aching need with every heartbeat. His arm wrapped around her waist as he crushed her body up against his, snaking his fingers into the hair at the base of her neck, delighting with a dark thrill in the mewl that escaped her lips as she wound her arms around his back, into his hair, pressing into him with a ferocity that would have startled her, if it didn’t belong to him. 

(If she didn’t belong to him.) 

(If he didn’t, completely, belong to her.)

They made their way, through bruising kisses and heated murmurs and the casual divesting of clothing to the furs on the floor - uncertain in their abilities to make it to the bed, and though the firelight had been lovely on her hair, it barely held a candle to way the flames played on her pale skin. The map of scars that crossed her body did not mar her beauty, but rather reminded him of her strength. He kissed her more fiercely to make her forget any man but him, any touch, any glance but his. He needn't have worried, not really - the only man she had ever loved was in her arms, and she rather felt as if she was drowning in him. 

She lay on top of him, hair loose and unbound as she pressed kisses to his scars, as she traced her fingertips around his cock, licking up the slope of his neck in every effort to devour him, before sinking onto him fully, eyes fluttering shut as she held him there, savoring the feel of him, the control she had over him, moaning slightly as she rocked her hips, instinctually. 

She had never known there could be pleasure like this - not for her. She had thought she was broken. 

But Jon’s fingertips traced up her ribcage, felt the heft of her breasts in his hands, pushed down lower and lower still until he found the apex of her sex and rubbed once, twice, three times - 

She came apart, completely, keening lowly as she curled onto him, her body shuddering as she crested her high and rode it slowly back down. He followed, not long after her, hips snapping up into her heat as he groaned. Still, he was not satisfied, and flipped her over to press kisses onto the underside of her jaw, despite her shivers, begging her to let him taste her, to bring her to peak, over and over again. 

She looked at him with stars in her eyes, and a challenge too, and lifted her arms above her head, letting her still-shaking legs fall to the side. He cursed, softly, under his breath, and chuckled darkly at the blush painting her pretty cheeks, at the sight of his juices, coming from her heat, at the way her nipples pebbled into peaks as he sucked on her teats, even next to the warmth of the fire, even covered in a thin sheen of sweat. 

He kissed lower, and lower still, desperate for her taste. He intended to have her at least twice more, before they had to face the consequences of the dawn, the battles still to come. Perhaps they’d even make it to the bed - eventually.

In the distance, a wolf howled. 

—

A lone rider approached on a dark horse.  
A fleet of ships appeared on the horizon of White Harbor, a golden kraken emblazoned on their sails.  
The raven tossed and turned in his sleep, sweat dotting his brow, fingers twitching as he reached and fell. 

At the Wall, a horn sounds.  
Once, twice. 

A third time. 

They are coming. _They are coming._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there are parts of this i really like and parts i really don't but its as good as its going to get today and i'm off to drink something bubbly and pretend my life isn't a dumpster fire 
> 
> thank you for following along and indulging me as i explored this! i honestly thing i'm going to go back to "our love was born outside the walls" and explore the theon/sansa possibility a lot more - so if that's your thing, keep an eye out! 
> 
> happy almost new year hope 2018 isn't quite the shit show of 2017 but c'est la vie, my dudes
> 
> as always, constructive criticism is SUPER welcome (srsly pls) and the titles are all from **heavy** by birdtalker.


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